I have the same problem with my daughters Dell Inspiron 1501 got it last year Christmas now out of now where the Hard drive makes noises it sounds like a cd is running and when i go to Bios i do not see SATA every time i turn the computer on it takes about 2 minutes before anything shows up for me to hit F2 or F12 and after that again about 2 minutes so when i get in to Bios in Main where is says Fixed Disk there it says NONE when i try to go to advance or security the computer freeze up on me and i can do nothing else. i do not have a Floppy Drive. If someone could help would be nice.
Here are the info on the Laptop.
Dell Inspiron 1501
Windows Xp Home Edition SP2
Thank You for your help

Hey all,

Some modifications for use on the Dell Inspiron 1720 to place XP on it.

In BIOS, under OnBoard Devices:
1. Modify the Flush Cache Module to say "Disabled"
2. Modify the SATA Operation from "AHCI" to "ATA"
3. Reboot with your XP CD.

It will now see all the drives and allow you to install XP on it.

HEHEHEHEHEH


Man You are my Hero "tyleryoungblood" , been so helpful bro

BTW It been hard last night today it's a wide smile on my face

thx again bro

Hi all,
I'm have the same error:
"setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on you computer"
on my Dell PowerEdge 840

The BIOS options are different that what's been posted previously.
Is set the
Diskette Drive A: to 3.5 inch.... from 'NOT INSTALLED'
SATA Controller: to ATA from OFF but I still can't get this to work...
SATA Port 0: AUTO
SATA Port 1: AUTO

I'm trying to reinstall MS SBS 2003

Any Ideas??

Please help

we have the same problem, but the fix that we tried that is listed here as put us deeper in a hole. our system is a dell8400 and it now will not even see the cd-rom drive when we boot. it sees is in the setup/cmos, but we just get a blinking cursor when we try to boot to the installation cd.

we tried setting it back to the original defaults it was at before, and it still doesn't see the cdrom drive.

any ideas what to do from here? we are just baffled...

obviously we have no floppy drive, so no way to get new drivers on???

any information would be greatly appreciated.

thank you.

ok, just for the record-, what stryfe wrote earlier in this thread with the dowload from dell website worked for us. we got an external usb floppy drive, loaded the file, and hit F6 during setup , and loaded the files, and it could then see the hard drive after that.

thank you stryfe! i owe ya one!

Whenever I try to install a fresh copy of windows I get the "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer".

I am using a Dell Inspiron 1150, the hard drive is a Hitachi Travelstar 30 GB, and I have a USB floppy drive. I am not sure where to get the driver for this hard drive, can any of you help me please? If you need any more information, I'll tell you what ever you need to know.

the dell website for the floppy disk that stryfe had suggested? and use the F6 button? that worked for us... i recommend trying that... so when windows asks for a 3rd part scsi driver (even though you aren't loading scsi) it will direct the setup to your floppy and load those drivers, so it can see the hard drive.

good luck

I downloaded the thing Stryfe suggested, and booted from the CD, used the F6 button, and it gave me two choices, RAID or AHCI. First I chose AHCI because that is what he used, and that did not worked. Next I started over again, then instead of using AHCI I chose to use RAID, and that did not work also. Sorry about all this.

Forget the floppy... nLite is the answer!

Use the nLite freeware application to integrate the necessary SATA drivers into a new bootable XP CD.

I just successfully did a fresh XP install on an Acer Power F5 with SATA HDD. I downloaded the SATA drivers and used nLite to integrate them into a new bootable CD which I burned and then used for the install.

PS: I tried to include direct links but as this is my virgin post, I wasn't allowed... so you'll have to use the power of the Google.

Sorry about this, but the only problem I think I am having is finding the correct drivers for the hard drive, the drive is a:

Hitachi Travelstar
Model: IC25N030ATMR04-0
4200 RPM
5V 1.0A DC
30 GB
ATA/IDE

sorry, but I have looked at some sites, but I can't find it anywhere? maybe one of you guys might have better luck. Please and Thank You.

amazing post, simple solution for a head eating problem, u really rule.....

Hey all. I am new to this forum, but I have this problem, and i desperately need help:

I started getting the "unmountable boot volume" error. So I put the XP cd in to repair it and it then said that it couldnt find my hard drive at all. So I called a couple local computer techs and they said that my hard drive could be dead (which was some devastating news). So I tried a couple of other methods to fix the problem, and still I get no solution. So now i just wonder if there is a way to get my files and media from my original hard drive. Silly me, I didnt back up anything, so I would hate to lose it, some files are not replaceable.

anyway, thanx

Dell Dimension 8400
P4 3.2GHz
512MB RAM
SATA 80Gig HD (stock)
CD-ROM & DVD-R/W drives

You are too awesome, this fixed my problem as well!!

This thread is years old and still helping people. I worked on a HP Pavilion dv1000 - and these steps (from the early pages) work just fine.

Just thought I share that. Good post Tyler.

- Can

I have something that may extend the life of this thread...

Dell Dimension 9150.

Was fine until updated Norton Internet Security to 2008 and did a disk scan.

Then (an maybe the drive decide to go bad at this time) there is grinding noise and seems to be in a loop during boot.

The attached shows the message details before F1 key to continue message.

Thanks,
Grindstaff

Attached Images

WHS1 Boot messages.jpg (57.8 KB, 5 views)

you can try the following.. it worked for me
Resolving "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" during Windows XP Installation
One of the most popular topics among our readers is installing Windows XP on your new Windows Vista computer - sometimes for compatibility reasons, but also because a lot of people just don't like Vista very much.
The problem that people keep running into left and right is getting to the point where XP starts to install and getting the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". This error happens because your new computer has a storage controller that isn't supported natively in XP, usually an SATA (Serial ATA) controller.

If you don't have a floppy drive in your computer (who does anymore), then you'll need to use a process called slip-streaming to integrate the storage drivers into your XP installation CD.
It should go without saying that this is an advanced topic, so proceed with caution.
Creating a Custom XP Install
We'll use a software called nLite to create a new XP install cd, so you'll first need to download and install it. Once it starts up, you'll be prompted for your Windows installation, so you'll want to click the Browse button.

First you'll be prompted for the "Windows installation", which really means your XP install CD. Find it and select the root of the installation, and then click OK to go to the next dialog.

Next you'll be prompted on where you want to save the temporary files used during the slip-streaming process. I chose to create a new directory and called it XPISO, but you can put it wherever you'd like. I just recommend to use a new directory.

nLite will copy all the necessary files off the XP installation and into the temporary folder. When it's done, you'll see all the information on which version it is.

Hit the next button until you come to this screen, where you can select what options you want. Select "Drivers" and then "Bootable ISO".

Side note: You can select any of the other options if you'd like. nLite will let you bundle updates, set tweaks or automatically remove components from the installation, but that all goes beyond the scope of this article.
Hit the next button until you get to the screen for selecting drivers. If you click the Insert button, you can choose between adding a single driver or adding a folder of drivers. Since we'll just be loading a single driver, you can choose that option, but you might want to first read the section below about finding drivers for XP.

Browse to the directory where you extracted the driver files, and then select Open. Note that it doesn't really matter which of the *.inf files you choose, because it will select all files in the folder anyway.

nLite will prompt you to select your driver. If you don't know which exact one it is, you can either use Device Manager in Vista to find the exact model, or you can just select all of them. Just be careful not to select a 64-bit driver if you are using 32-bit, or the wrong OS version.

I would recommend including both Storage and Network drivers, as those are the most common drivers that are missing in XP.
Once you proceed to the next screen, now we can finally finish the process. You can choose to directly burn the cd here, or you can select Create Image to create an ISO file that you can burn to a CD using whatever burning tool you have.
Note: If you chose to create an ISO, make sure to use the "Make ISO" button before you click Next.




At this point you can burn the ISO image to a CD, and then start your XP installation process.
Finding Drivers for XP
The best place to search for drivers for your hardware is at the manufacturer's support website. The only problem is that almost every manufacturer seems to distribute their drivers in floppy disk image form, even though the computer they are for doesn't have a floppy drive. Guess nobody has alerted them to get with the program.
We can still extract the drivers using an application called WinImage. Let's run through a quick example… Here you can see the Intel SATA controller driver for my HP computer.

I downloaded and ran the executable, which extracted a file called f6flpy32.exe into a temporary directory. Don't bother trying to run this one, because it'll just prompt you for a floppy drive.

So how to get the drivers out of this file? There are a few options that you can try, depending on how the manufacturer packed the files.
• You can use Winimage to extract them, which is a shareware software, but you can use it during the trial period for free.
• You can try and use WinRar to extract the file. In many instances this will extract a *.flp file, which you can mount in a VMware virtual machine or potentially with some ISO mounting software.
• Some drivers will allow you to automatically extract into a directory. You'll have to try it and see what happens.
• Other methods? If you've got other ideas, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to this list.
Here's the list of files that Winimage can handle, which is quite a lot.

Start WinImage and then open the file, and you should see the contents. Just extract them to a folder, preferably with a useful name so you can remember it later.

Good luck with your installation…

guys try the following it worked for me... good luck

Resolving "Setup did not find any hard disk drives" during Windows XP Installation
One of the most popular topics among our readers is installing Windows XP on your new Windows Vista computer - sometimes for compatibility reasons, but also because a lot of people just don't like Vista very much.
The problem that people keep running into left and right is getting to the point where XP starts to install and getting the message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". This error happens because your new computer has a storage controller that isn't supported natively in XP, usually an SATA (Serial ATA) controller.

If you don't have a floppy drive in your computer (who does anymore), then you'll need to use a process called slip-streaming to integrate the storage drivers into your XP installation CD.
It should go without saying that this is an advanced topic, so proceed with caution.
Creating a Custom XP Install
We'll use a software called nLite to create a new XP install cd, so you'll first need to download and install it. Once it starts up, you'll be prompted for your Windows installation, so you'll want to click the Browse button.

First you'll be prompted for the "Windows installation", which really means your XP install CD. Find it and select the root of the installation, and then click OK to go to the next dialog.

Next you'll be prompted on where you want to save the temporary files used during the slip-streaming process. I chose to create a new directory and called it XPISO, but you can put it wherever you'd like. I just recommend to use a new directory.

nLite will copy all the necessary files off the XP installation and into the temporary folder. When it's done, you'll see all the information on which version it is.

Hit the next button until you come to this screen, where you can select what options you want. Select "Drivers" and then "Bootable ISO".

Side note: You can select any of the other options if you'd like. nLite will let you bundle updates, set tweaks or automatically remove components from the installation, but that all goes beyond the scope of this article.
Hit the next button until you get to the screen for selecting drivers. If you click the Insert button, you can choose between adding a single driver or adding a folder of drivers. Since we'll just be loading a single driver, you can choose that option, but you might want to first read the section below about finding drivers for XP.

Browse to the directory where you extracted the driver files, and then select Open. Note that it doesn't really matter which of the *.inf files you choose, because it will select all files in the folder anyway.

nLite will prompt you to select your driver. If you don't know which exact one it is, you can either use Device Manager in Vista to find the exact model, or you can just select all of them. Just be careful not to select a 64-bit driver if you are using 32-bit, or the wrong OS version.

I would recommend including both Storage and Network drivers, as those are the most common drivers that are missing in XP.
Once you proceed to the next screen, now we can finally finish the process. You can choose to directly burn the cd here, or you can select Create Image to create an ISO file that you can burn to a CD using whatever burning tool you have.
Note: If you chose to create an ISO, make sure to use the "Make ISO" button before you click Next.




At this point you can burn the ISO image to a CD, and then start your XP installation process.
Finding Drivers for XP
The best place to search for drivers for your hardware is at the manufacturer's support website. The only problem is that almost every manufacturer seems to distribute their drivers in floppy disk image form, even though the computer they are for doesn't have a floppy drive. Guess nobody has alerted them to get with the program.
We can still extract the drivers using an application called WinImage. Let's run through a quick example… Here you can see the Intel SATA controller driver for my HP computer.

I downloaded and ran the executable, which extracted a file called f6flpy32.exe into a temporary directory. Don't bother trying to run this one, because it'll just prompt you for a floppy drive.

So how to get the drivers out of this file? There are a few options that you can try, depending on how the manufacturer packed the files.
• You can use Winimage to extract them, which is a shareware software, but you can use it during the trial period for free.
• You can try and use WinRar to extract the file. In many instances this will extract a *.flp file, which you can mount in a VMware virtual machine or potentially with some ISO mounting software.
• Some drivers will allow you to automatically extract into a directory. You'll have to try it and see what happens.
• Other methods? If you've got other ideas, leave them in the comments and I'll add them to this list.
Here's the list of files that Winimage can handle, which is quite a lot.

Start WinImage and then open the file, and you should see the contents. Just extract them to a folder, preferably with a useful name so you can remember it later.

Good luck with your installation…

I created an account as well as Pachelbel9 to thank you and Stryfe for your posts. This is one thing I love about the IT community. That is, we don't know everything about everything and so when we come across something we haven't seen before there's people out there who have and post their solutions online.

Thanks again guys.

I have the same problem. My pc doesn't have a floppy drive, so what should I do? When I try to install Vista I have no problems, but when I install Xp I get the same error as you guys. I have an Acer, can't turn nothing on, simple BIOS settings.

Any solutions for this?